Personhood and Compromise

Charles Krauthammer ("Cell Lines, Moral Lines," Washington Post, 8/5/05) simultaneously provides a weak argument for expanded federal funding of stem cell research while unwittingly drawing attention to the twisted morality of in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Krauthammer concedes that an embryo is indeed a “new human life,” but he sees no problem in destroying embryos in order to conduct research on their cells. His argument – emphasized in italics, no less – is that thousands of such embryos “will be destroyed anyway,” so snatching a few stem cell lines before they’re snuffed is simply a practical matter. 

Where Krauthammer does have trouble is the possibility that embryos will be produced (and presumably sold) for experimentation purposes only, and he calls for limits to be included in the stem cell bill that is working its way through Congress.

If Mr. Krauthammer is not bothered by the disposal of “extra” embryos, then why would he be bothered by entrepreneurs trafficking in embryonic tissue and cells? If pre-born human beings are not persons, as he suggests, then what difference would it make if free and fertile citizens made a few bucks by providing embryonic grist for the stem-cell mill? The inconsistency in Krauthammer’s logic betrays an underlying relativism that allows him to pick and choose what kinds of human life are worthy of protection.

A second question for Krauthammer follows hard on the heels of the first: If he is troubled by the idea of “human manufacture,” then why isn’t he complaining about the IVF industry itself? It is well known that successful IVF is dependent on embryonic redundancy, and that every attempt at achieving pregnancy through this method will result in the production of multiple “spare” embryos that are usually destroyed. Isn’t this the very utilitarian human manufacture that Krauthammer is afraid of?

The pro-life bottom line is this: All human life is precious, including the zygotes and blastocysts that Krauthammer so glibly dismisses as non-persons. To designate certain stages of human development as expendable is to engage in the very moral reasoning that has been used to justify all kinds of depravity and violence in the recent past.

Either human life is sacred and deserving of every protection from conception until natural death, or else no one is safe. This is not merely a lesson from religion; it is a clear and disturbing lesson from history, and one which our national leaders should heed as they consider the stem cell issue.
__________________________

A version of this letter originally appeared in the South Bend Tribune's "Michiana Point of View" on September 2, 2005.

Bothered by Bonhoeffer

Originally posted on Facebook (April 22, 2010). 

Joseph Loconte's review of Eric Metaxas' new Dietrich Bonhoeffer biography appears in today's Wall Street Journal, and it got under my skin.

I so much respect Bonhoeffer's devout orthodoxy and passionate commitment to living out the Gospel, heedless of the world's conventions and compromises. His embodiment of radical grace and costly discipleship is tremendously challenging and certainly deserves greater attention and imitation, particularly today.

But the assassination plot: I can't get past the assassination plot. I know I can't judge Bonhoeffer's decision to be party to a plan to kill Hitler—I wasn't there in wartime Germany when Jews and others were being exterminated by the hundreds of thousands.

Still, we rightly condemn those who today turn to violence in the name of protecting the unborn, and so the question arises: What's the difference?

Can we ever countenance intentional killing, even of someone like Hitler? Was Bonhoeffer simply wrong?
___________________________________

A Person Must Never Be Allowed to Starve to Death

Theresa Marie Schiavo (1963-2005)

Thank you for the editorial "Every human life deserves dignity" (May 29, 2005), which comes significantly just about two months after Terri Schiavo's death. Since then, the issue of artificially supplied nutrition and hydration has virtually disappeared from the headlines, and it might seem that all the fuss about tube feeding has simply faded away. 

Nevertheless, the question of whether Schiavo was allowed to die or was killed is very much current for those who care for others in similar circumstances. While it is true that the courts allowed Terri's husband to remove his wife's feeding tube – thereby ensuring her death by starvation – they in no way legitimized what he did. Indeed, the drama surrounding Schiavo's demise only serves to illustrate how inhuman this practice is, and the revulsion most people of good will experienced during the ordeal makes it plain that it should never be allowed to happen again.

Unfortunately, as anyone who works in healthcare can attest, it is a situation that recurs with alarming frequency in our hospitals and nursing homes today – often with the prior consent of the victim. Many so-called "living wills" include clauses that allow signers to explicitly reject the artificial administration of food and water if they become incapacitated and unable to eat on their own. By signing these forms, people agree to accept a horrible death, whether wittingly or unwittingly, and too many doctors are all too willing to carry out those wishes once the circumstances present themselves. 

This is the kind of dangerous moral surrender that Pope John Paul II addressed in a speech he made back in March 2004. Speaking to a gathering of experts on persistent vegetative state (PVS), the pope made it very clear that the provision of nutrition and hydration must always be considered a part of ordinary care. Even when artificially administered, John Paul said, food and water "always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act." The debate on this issue among moralists and theologians had gone on for many years, but the Holy Father's clear statement effectively put an end to the controversy. 

Even so, confusion on this issue is rampant, even among Catholics, and even those who were on the right side of the Schiavo issue are unaware of the full implications of her case. Much was made in the media of the question regarding Terri's wishes concerning what she'd want if she were in a PVS, but according to the Holy Father's instruction, a person's wishes are irrelevant to the provision of food and water. Simply put, a person must never be allowed to starve to death, no matter what that person desires or requests. 

A protestor outside the Florida courthouse where Terri's fate was decided.

Obviously, when the provision of nutrition and hydration is no longer serving any purpose at all – when nutrients can no longer be assimilated by the body or are not providing any comfort to someone whose death is imminent – then it may be discontinued. But such a situation was not being addressed by the pope in the spring of 2004; he was addressing a narrowly prescribed set of circumstances, and it seems providential that, almost exactly a year later, the specific circumstances he had referred to burst into the public eye with the battle over Terri Schiavo. We must never forget that Terri was not dying until her feeding tube was removed. This is the crucial point: When food and water are withheld such that a person dies as a direct result, the only possible conclusion is a willful homicide. 

Of course, consideration must be made for the particular circumstances of individual cases, but what the Holy Father has done is to help us know the limits of what can be debated, even in the hard cases. No one is claiming that food and water must be provided at all costs until the very last breath has passed ones lips; what the pope did declare is that no one should ever die from starvation and dehydration – and that is precisely what happens when feeding tubes are discontinued despite the absence of underlying pathologies that naturally lead to death. In fact, John Paul refers to such precipitate withdrawals of food and water as "euthanasia by omission."

No one would choose to be in a PVS for any length of time – whether 15 years or five years or even the required one year to attach that label to someone – but unforeseen and unfortunate things happen all the time, and it is in those very unforeseen and unfortunate situations that we are closest to the cross. Our brothers and sisters who are in a PVS (or "post-coma syndrome," as some Catholics writing on this topic are calling it to get away from the negative connotations associated with "vegetative") require our love an care. They are Christ, the Christ of Matthew 25 – "when I was hungry, you fed me; when I was thirsty, you gave me drink."

Can we do otherwise?
______________________________

A version of this essay originally appeared in Today's Catholic on June 19, 2005. Terri Schiavo died of marked dehydration on March 31, 2005.

Hydration at the End of Life: Avoiding Unnecessary Dehydration

"The deliberate withholding of food and water, regardless of how it is administered, can constitute a form of passive euthanasia, particularly when the intention is to hasten the patient's death. 

"The Church has made it abundantly clear that all forms of euthanasia, whether passive or active, are gravely immoral and must be avoided."

Read more...

Real Life

Originally posted on Facebook, July 12, 2013. 

Snowboarding is a world utterly foreign to me, but I'm intimately acquainted with Down syndrome.

My son, Nick, has Down's, and his very life is a window on a world of freedom and joy that I'll never know—except through him. Thank God he's here.

I was reminded of that when I read Dorothy Rabinowitz' WSJ review of The Crash Reel, a documentary about snowboarder Kevin Pearce, his brain injury, and his recovery.

Kevin's story sounds compelling in itself, but what especially struck me was the portrait presented of Kevin's family—especially his brother, David:

David is a riveting presence. He's the family's Down syndrome child, now a young man—urgent, full of passion for his adored athlete brother, the raw voice of anguish over Kevin's accident that the other members of the family try to contain in themselves.

This is what we parents of Down's kids know; it's what the world that aborts them at a rate of 9 out of 10 needs to hear.

Is Down's a piece of cake? No. Here's more from the Pearces:

Mia, Kevin's mother, recalls her initial fear—soon dispatched—that she might not be able to deal with a Down syndrome child. David, that child now nearly a man, reveals details of the unhappiness he feels when he thinks about his condition, a description impressive in its eloquence.

Unhappiness about his condition, but better off dead? Hardly. Life is hard and filled with challenges, but killing to eliminate challenges not only doesn't work—it's terribly, painfully counterproductive. Sometimes, more often than not, the very challenges we wish to avoid turn out to be priceless opportunities that lead to new life. We just can't see it yet.

And when it comes to Down syndrome in particular? I pray for a world that, like Mia Pearce, will dispatch fear instead of persons.

On the Authoritativeness of Scripture

The Paralytic of Capharnaum is Lowered from the Roof (Byzantine School)

'Problems such as John’s paraphrasing of Jesus’ discourses and the "thatched roof versus tile roof" controversy (cf. Mark 2:4 and Luke 5:19) are not truly divisive, nor are they dangerous to our faith. We agree that the gospels provide us with a generally reliable idea of who Christ was, what he did, and what he said.'

Read more...

St. Benedict Joseph Labre (1748-1783)

A beggar. A bum. A stinking, dirty tramp. A saint. Benedict Joseph Labre is a stunning challenge to our sanitized images of sanctity and, while not a Franciscan, his total embrace of poverty makes him a true kinsman of St. Francis.

The son of a village shopkeeper, Benedict Joseph grew up amid comfortable surroundings in the French countryside. His parents interpreted his reserved manner, evident piety, and concern for the poor as signs of a priestly vocation and sent him away for an education.

Benedict Joseph Labre, depicted by Antonio Cavalluci (1795)

Benedict studied under his uncle, a parish priest, but the boy's heart was rarely fixed on his Latin lessons. Instead, he gravitated to the transient poor of the byways and lonely places, and he delighted to mingle with them, often emptying out his pockets among them. Labre's attraction to the despised appeared eccentric to his contemporaries, no less than to us, yet his impulse was right – he intuitively recognized the continuity between his time with outcasts and the long hours he spent before the Eucharist.

During a cholera outbreak, the priest and student selflessly cared for the sick and dying. After losing his uncle to the disease, Benedict left his studies and career behind, determined to follow his true calling – poverty, hiddenness, and prayer. He set out with his family's permission to locate a monastic family where he could lose himself in abandonment to God.

The Carthusians, the Cistercians, the Trappists – all turned him away due to his curious affinities and poor health. But he never gave into discouragement. He knew God was faithful and would lead him aright, and as it turned out, Labre's wanderings proved to be a providential trajectory that did indeed set him on his life's course.

For Benedict Joseph's calling was to be a monk with a singular vocation: His monastery became the world, his chapel the streets, and his habit rags and filth. Like St. Francis, Labre's heavenward gaze was so intense, so fixed, that he found it difficult to conform to any of the world's categories – even the best of them – and he found his niche by not having a niche.

Giving up on monastic life, Labre made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1770. In the next six years, the saint crisscrossed the European landscape: Always on foot, generally sleeping outside, rarely begging, and accepting only those alms he needed for any given day. With an old cloak, his Rosary beads, and a couple of books as his only possessions, he made multiple journeys to a variety of shrines, including Loreto, Compostela, and, fittingly, Assisi. His days were spent in prayer and his nights among the homeless poor. Since he never cared for his body, he was often reviled and abused – signs to him of God's special favor.

Eventually Benedict settled in Rome, and he served the rest of his life as the Eternal City's holy fool, destitute yet joyful. He frequented many of the city's churches, and had a particular enthusiasm for the then-popular Forty Hours devotion. The supplicant would sit for long stretches in silent meditation before the tabernacle, completely enveloped in the presence of Christ, and then retire to the ruins of the Colosseum, his adopted home, to spend a good part of his night in further, intense prayer. 

Labre's tomb in S. Maria dei Monti, Rome. The effigy was made by Achille Albacini in 1892.

In his last days, Labre's rapidly declining health forced him to find refuge in a poor house. On Wednesday of Holy Week, 1783, the 35-year-old beggar collapsed on the steps of a church; he later died peacefully in the home of a friendly butcher. Immediately the city's children took to the streets exclaiming, "The saint is dead! The saint is dead!" The entire populace turned out to pay their respects and extra police had to be brought in to control the crowds. As Donald Attwater says in his Dictionary of Saints, "The people of Rome never had any doubt about the holiness of this 'new St. Francis,' and he was eventually canonized."

Benedict Joseph is truly a saint for our times. His radical detachment – from possessions, from the world, even from himself – shows up the emptiness of modern self-absorption and greed. Not that we should all resort to a semi-contemplative existence on the streets, but we would do well to follow Labre's lead in cultivating detachment and put away whatever distracts us from God.

Therein lies sanctity and sanctity is our destiny – we only must seize it, and God gives us the grace to do so. God can fashion a saint from a homeless tramp; he can make saints of us. All he needs are the raw materials.

A version of this essay was originally published in Franciscan Way, Franciscan University of Steubenville.